


all things insidious to the self

by moonbeatblues



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, i did my “taking the sat on 0 sleep” thing again and got in a mood, listen i love cheryl a lot, oof
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-07-27 14:40:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16221191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonbeatblues/pseuds/moonbeatblues
Summary: What a lofty status, on the surface, to stain one’s mouth so very red on you— to be Cheryl Blossom’s girl.But, well.Mother makes quite sure there’s no-one in line for it anymore.





	1. was it another? (got a heart-shaped face)

**Author's Note:**

> i really hope cheryl and toni are the one thing cw doesn’t do dirty because they really deserve the best
> 
> thus, i had to make my offering.

Not many things really belong to you, in the end.

 

Jason was yours, and then he was Polly’s, and then he wasn’t anything at all.

 

And Heather.

Well, she was something else altogether.

—

 

Your Heather, _your girl_ — you remember the first time she kissed you.

 

 

God, Sweetwater River runs so gloriously cold in the summer.

To forego your trips with Jason, to peel off your long socks and go wading with the sun peak and nestled in the pale sky—you’d only do it for her.

 

Your Heather, she was so _blonde_ — wheat and honey and all things golden under the sun.

Debussy wrote songs about your Heather— she’d sidle up next to you on the long velvety bench to hear you play, all pale fingers on paler keys. It was before you took to that deafening sanguine; your nails were short and clean and didn’t stand out to be interlaced with her hands.

 

You were laid out ungraceful and sweating on the long grass of the river bank, away from the glass-run rocks.

God forbid Mother should have seen you, breath pealing out of your throat in audible little bursts, the tail ends of some laughter,gasping and raucous and unbecoming.

 

Your Heather pushed up onto her elbows in the wet grass and the dirt, turning so her hair tipped down to you. She was so _bright_ in the sun— you looked up coy and reverent from beneath the hand shading your eyes.

 

She dug back a little, on her forearms, the expanse of her in that fanned-out blue dress quirked upward at the waist. Dark, inquisitive eyes so very _heavy_ on your face.

 

“Cheryl?”

 

God, how she always said your name. Like the pluck of two strings, low and then high. The roll of some lovely chord.

 

“Yes, Heather dear?”

And that. You reserved it without thought— for Jason, and her, and no one else.

 

“Do you ever want to leave?”

 

“Leave Riverdale?”

 

Of _course_ you do. You couldn’t count the hours shut up in your room, even then; already you could taste the rot of Thornhill on everything. Already you thought Mother to be less human and more glittery insect.

And yet.

 

“Oh, sometimes. But I could never leave Jason, or Nana Rose.”

You were a little bolder, then— you reached for her hand and held it up, close to your mouth. “Or you.”

 

She rolled over on her side to face you, pressing into your palm with a sigh and sweeping hair from her face.

“I couldn’t leave you, either.”

 

You always poured a flush to be this close to her, to feel the warm hum of her skin. She always smelled of verbena, citrus. Clean and sweet.

 

“Maybe, someday, we can go together.” You drew your eyes up under your knitted brows to look at her, across the expanse of your tickling breaths. “And JJ, of course.”

 

Her mouth was parted on a long exhale, a few silk-thin strands of hair tossed up on the breeze. “Yeah.”

 

 

You had never kissed anyone before. Afterward, you didn’t really want to kiss anyone else, ever.

 

Oh, but you’d thought about it.

 

Heather’s lips were soft and matte-sticky in the heat, but cool.

Light under the stifling air, the heat— she tasted like the cold mint tea you’d brought along.

 

It was such a simple motion, to lean into one another. Nothing had ever made so much sense, you think.

Your Heather pressed up to roll you onto your back, one hand curled along your jaw.

Her hair falling around your face, cool body blanketing yours. Hiding you from the sun and just about everything else.

 

After a few, long moments you were out of breath— you drew in air greedy and quiet up against her mouth with your eyes closed, one hand still working to curl some loose tendrils of her hair, and she fell back against the grass on a sharp exhale, guiding you to bury your face in her neck and blink into her collarbone.

She said nothing— you and your Heather, you didn’t need words often— and she sifted her long, pretty fingers in the tangled and grass-damp length of your hair.

You were red up against her, flushing pink against her throat and your hair coppery under the sun, and she was so soft and cold to be held to.

Like crawling, weary, under clean sheets at night; you let her hide you from the day and the heat for a long while, the river quiet and smooth below.

 

 

You had never really thought _you_ would need to hide _her_.

 

—

 

“Why don’t you want anyone to know you, Cheryl?”

 

You can feel Toni speak more than hear it, from where you’re slumped against her back on the bike.

 

God, you haven’t let yourself cry in front of anyone in a long time.

Antoinette Topaz speaks to you like she knows it, and you have half a mind to remind her anyway, but your cheek is pressed to the slick leather of her jacket and you don’t quite have it in you to strike that match in your throat and spit your usual fire.

 

“Because everyone who ever did is gone.”

 

Another unspoken gift to Toni: the croak in your voice. The parking lot is blissfully empty— god knows you wouldn’t be doing this otherwise— and you wonder if she heard you at first, over the neon and crickets, the usual small-town nachtmusik.

 

There’s a long little stretch of silence, and she doesn’t ask why you’re speaking to her, then— fortunately, because you don’t know why you’re being so reckless, _again_ — and you sink further against her with a hum.

 

“Hey,” she says, turning her head to get closer to your ear, careful to keep those long pink tresses away from your face.

“Maybe we should get you home before you fall asleep out here, huh, Bombshell?”

 

“No.”

 

It’s just about the weakest noise you’ve heard from your own mouth.

“I can’t go there. Not tonight.” You slide your arms forward to lock loosely around her stomach.

Under the Serpents jacket Toni’s shirt is rucked up almost to the base of her ribs. You close your eyes, near-religious.

 

She waits a long moment. Sighs and her stomach drops from against your forearms.

“Alright. Hang on, okay?”

 

You’ve already got one leg swung over the seat, but she reaches back to press your torso right to her back and you gasp, hopefully inaudible.

She starts up the motorcycle and you move to grip at her hipbones with both hands. Any more awake, your eyes would be wide and rolling fearfully.

Instead, you just dig your nails into her skin and like to think you can feel her shake.

 

And then you’re off, swinging out onto the dim, long street, and you squeeze your eyes shut. Trusting her not to take you home, despite every reason she has to.

-

Toni almost has to drag you off the bike when you arrive, guiding you to hold onto her wrists so she can lead you to the trailer.

She puts a finger to your lips and waits for you to nod before coaxing you up the step, and you blink blearily and think about the faint red undoubtedly left there.

 

You can hear the sagging exhales of someone sleeping in the living room— not quite snoring, but far from aware of their own noise— but you’re still kind of stuck on Toni pressing that finger to your mouth and so don’t bother to guess at who it is.

 

When Toni sets you on what’s presumably her bed you just sort of lean fruitlessly into her again— god, have you _ever_ been this tired?

 

“Cheryl,” she hisses. Urgent, but not unkind.

“I’m gonna take off your jacket, if that’s okay.”

 

Sleepily, you hold your arms out and she peels it off your shoulders, slow and looking you carefully in the eyes.

Wary, like _you’re_ the snake, basking flat on the road in the dark but coiled, always.

 

It’s a fair precaution.

 

Toni rises to drape your jacket neatly over a chair, and you realize you probably shouldn’t sleep in the rest of your clothes, either.

She turns to see you stepping wordlessly out of your jeans and kicking your boots to the side.

 

“Um.”

 

In the light, you think you’d see the most _interesting_ look on her face, but you just let her watch, sinking back onto the bed.

 

She exhales so long you almost wonder if her lung’s collapsed, and, in a moment of lucidity you think to turn and face the wall so she can change in peace.

(You do mourn her losing the leather jacket, though.)

 

When Toni takes some very great pains in joining you, you summon your last bit of rationale and realize just how _truly awful_ this idea was. Ever cautious, she’s trying to allow you as much space as possible, but you can still feel the pressure of her mostly-bare thigh against yours.

 

It has been quite a while since you’ve felt that.

 

You think you must make some sad noise, because she shifts even further towards the opposite edge, but you’ve expended your rationale, now, and you roll over to where your knee finds the back of hers, again.

She’s mostly on one side, so you just sort of press your face against her shoulder blade and find her hipbone with one hand.

She sighs, again, but acquiesces, folds back to find you. Reaches for the hand at her waist and links your fingers, loose and warm. Palms apart.

 

“Night, Cheryl.”

—

 

In the morning, she’ll deposit you carefully around the back of the Thornhill estate.

You’ll steal back in, the way only you ever could, and make for your shower.

Wash the Southside from your hair and pretend it feels good to. Pretend not to think about Antoinette Topaz’s legs flush against yours ~~and what if she’d pressed one of her knees up between. Unwavering.~~


	2. divertimento

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it rains in riverdale, and time’s arrow marches only forward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the referenced piece is the second movement from schulhoff’s divertimento for string quartet, op. 14  
> it’s a little hard to find recordings of his music, but the kocian quartet has a nice one

Your Heather was like a bird— had at least two inches on you and would fold her arms around your neck like stripped wings.

Your girl had grey-brown eyes like river rocks, cold and smooth and heavy heavy heavy on your face; Heather had this _brutal_ gaze she’d drop to your mouth when it got quiet— she didn’t even need to kiss you to bruise your lips warm and wine-red.

Your girl, she was crushed-up dandelions, thick and bitter from the stems. Your girl walked with heavy heels on the old and unforgiving floors, she broke the grass like blood vessels underfoot, she swept hair from her face with lazy hands or just puffed air at the strands to grin up at you from under them, sleek and dangerous.

 

Your girl was the sun, your girl was all things alive under it. You grew together and dreamed, long and content; you made peace so long as she’d be the one bleaching your quiet bones.

—

 

One afternoon the belly of the sky split overhead while you were in the garden— right down the middle, like too-tight skin, and it rained like you’d never _known_. Thick strains of water ran down to your ears, your mouth, and over the rush of the taste and the smell Heather was laughing.

 

It was so much you could barely see; you ran with your hands in this cold, twisted mess to the refuge of the long porch and you were so heavy when you sank, sodden to the steps.

She slicked your hair back from your face, and then her own, and you breathed bellows at each other for a long moment.

You shivered and your hand jumped in hers, and then you were laughing, close and jittery and with your dress plastered to your thighs, until you were just exhaling heavily right against each other’s mouths.

 

Like always, kissing Heather was more a breath than the inhale before it— she always tasted so _bright_ , and she smelled like the leach of ozone and the rain-wet ground, and she languidly pressed the palm of her other hand against the back of your head.

Mother was down at Thornhill, and Thistlehouse was quiet and safe over you; you weren’t so afraid to lean up into her, and she wasn’t so afraid to pull.

-

The two of you took long turns under your shower inside— you watched a little blankly from the bed when she emerged, in a spare pair of your silk pajamas and wringing out the darkened tendrils of her hair with one of your initialed towels. She smelled like your soap, and you almost cried when she caught your gaze with that slow, lazy grin.

Heather— she was always so unafraid to be _yours_ , and it made you dizzy; you curled with knees inward in a big damp ball on your bed and slept for a little, her mouth close to your ear and honey-sweet words sluicing up from her throat— “God, Cher, you’re so _pretty_ ”— and other things to make your hands claw into her hip.

—

 

“You know, there was this one song JJ and I learned to waltz to.”

You peer absently at your nails, not wanting to meet Toni’s eyes— holding on an inhale comfortably, the way you always do when you’re waiting on a response.

 

“Yeah?”

It’s downright _annoying_ , the way Antoinette Topaz seems incapable of speaking above a rasp. The loudest, you think, you’ve heard her was that first day in the hall, and even threatening you her voice was still disquietingly, distractingly low.

 

“Mm-hmm. Mother’s particularly fond of 20th-century music, the stranger the better.” You close your eyes, slowly. “She only ever wanted us to take dance lessons for special occasions, but she liked one piece she heard so much that she’d put it on in the house and have us dance for her. At parties, she’d book her favorite quartet just to hear it, every time.”

 

Mother does not like music, in the house. Mother liked Thornhill quiet and brooding and dark. These days, you keep all the big, heavy drapes in Thistlehouse tied back to let in the sun, and you’d have invited Toni over just to hear her heavy footfalls on the ancient stairs. Nana Rose doesn’t mind.

 

Toni has seen your mother, and she whistles between her teeth at the idea of music in the halls. “Must be a damn good song. What’s it called?”

 

Your eyes are still closed, and you can almost smell the wild clove down by Sweetwater River. You think of Heather, of Jason, beaming up at you in the sun with their feet in the water, the river running low and clear, and the corners of your mouth lift, mostly unbidden.

“Cavatine.”

-

 

It was less than six minutes.

 

 

You search Toni’s face carefully while the smooth melody builds in the car speakers. It’s a strange song, undoubtedly, with the lush, bizarre sort of harmony you’d only find after two world wars.

 

Simple, foreign. Like the food of a stranger’s home.

 

You’ve never made to find out where Heather is, now. You don’t want to visit Jason’s grave alone.

No repeats. Only brief reprisal.

(There are sketches of Heather that Mother didn’t feed to Thornhill’s fireplace. You dream of Jason on the other riverbank, shoes soaked through and his face away from you, to the sun.)

 

The recapitulation peters out, melancholy, and you sit in silence. Not uncomfortable; Toni watches fresh beads of rain lash weakly at the windshield, and you watch her, pressure building behind your eyes that scatters, briefly, when you blink.

 

The car is quiet and dark until she speaks.

 

“Would you teach me the other part?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (sorry this is pretty short, comparatively— it was 3 am and i needed to clear my Sick and Loud Brain)

**Author's Note:**

> i’m @seafleece on tumblr, @quetzalcoatlmundi for writing; come yell at me if you want more of this


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